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What: Open house on options to decrease use of disposable shopping bags in Fort Collins When: 4:30-7 p.m. Thursday Where: Community Room, 215 N. Mason St. Learn more:http://bit.ly/FCbags

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Fort Collins is investigating whether to ban plastic shopping bags, or to force shoppers to pay extra for each bag they get from the grocery store.

It’s part of the city’s efforts to both reduce our environmental footprint and cut the number of trashy plastic bags that get caught in trees and fences.

“We’ve always heard reduce, reuse and recycle, and yet the reduce part always seems to elude people,” said Susie Gordon, a city environmental resources planner.

No decisions have been made yet, and the City Council is scheduled to discuss the issue later this month. City staffers are inviting the public to offer opinions at an open house on Thursday.

City staff investigated the issue at the request of council members, spending $5,000 on a study examining how other cities have approached what are sometimes called bag bans. The study, conducted by local consultants the Brendle Group, examined what city leaders call the “triple bottom line” — economic, environmental and social consequences.

The study considered three options: an education campaign, an outright ban and a fee paid by customers who wanted a bag.

The first option, the study said, likely would lead to a small reduction in plastic bag use. Today, only about 5 percent of plastic bags get recycled, in part because many of them are reused for trash or dog waste, the study said.

A ban would prompt the largest reduction in bag use, but also could be unpopular and likely would be opposed by merchants, the study said.

And a fee would create a “moderate” reduction in bag use, but could hurt poor people because they’d end up paying more to carry home their groceries. A portion of the fee would be used for educational campaigns and to buy reusable bags for the poor, city officials said. The consultants said Washington, D.C.’s 5-cent-per-bag fee drove an 80 percent reduction in use.

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The city of Boulder is considering a plan requiring shoppers to pay 10 cents for every plastic bag they wanted. Ordinances like the one in Boulder and the one being considered in Fort Collins exempt things like deli and trash bags.

Boulder officials say they have a bag recycling rate today of at least 20 percent, and that residents annually use the equivalent of 342 paper or plastic bags per person. The city spends up to $40,000 annually on street sweeping to clean up plastic bags.

“The idea is that people would bring their own,” instead of pay for bags, said Boulder city spokeswoman Sarah Huntley.

That’s already what happens most of the time at the Fort Collins Food Co-op in Old Town, said manager Lynn Chriestenson.“Most of them bring in their own bags, or their own backpacks,” she said.

Chriestenson said the co-op collects and reuses plastic bags from other stores if customers bring them in. But she said fewer customers are bringing in bags these days. “We are getting to the point where we quite often run out of bags,” she said.

Companies such as Walmart are already voluntarily reducing their use of plastic bags — the company last year managed to eliminate the use of 3.1 billion bags globally, a 35 percent reduction from 2007. Stores have to buy the bags, and the price is usually rolled into the cost of your groceries.

In Brazil, for instance, Walmart stores gave customers a 3-cent discount for every bag they didn’t use, saving 1 million plastic bags in its first two months. Walmart also sells reusable bags, which it says can reduce the use of 100 plastic bags over their lifetime. And in the United Kingdom, the Walmart-owned grocery store chain ASDA cut plastic-bag use by 30 percent simply by not offering them to customers unless asked.

Coloradoan reader Teresa Wilson Oswald said she thinks consumers should drive this kind of change, if they truly want it. “Not the government’s place. Consumers should be the ones to pressure companies to do the right thing,” she said.

Michelle Griffin Doll said she thinks the city ought to stay out of this one. Invoking the recent changes to electric rates intended to prompt conservation, she asked: “Why does this city feel the need to force me to do things? I recycle every bag. I don’t throw them away. Why can’t we make it easier to recycle them at the curb instead of ban them. People wouldn’t throw them away if they could throw them in the bin and recycle them ...”

Sherry Romero said she thinks charging would be the most effective way to change people’s behavior. “The more people BYOB, the trendier it’ll become. That said, it’s tough to always bring enough bags/baskets to cover the need.”

Gordon said addressing plastic bags is a way to ensure Fort Collins stays current on best practices. She said how cities address bags has become a “bellweather,” like single-stream recycling, composting and renewable energy.

Plastic bags are banned in San Francisco, Portland, Ore. and Maui County in Hawaii. Charging a fee on both plastic and paper bags occurs in Washington D.C., Basalt, and Montgomery County in Maryland. And there’s a ban on plastic bags plus a fee charged on paper bags in Seattle, Marin County, Aspen, and Telluride.

“We’re not just trying to keep up with the latest fad,” Gordon said. “I think people really do hate plastic bags on several levels.”